GRC Blog

Welcome to the GRC Recorders pages. This blog provides details on all the relevant news of Glamorgan’s scarcer birds, plus all BBRC & WRP decisions that affect us locally. It will also be used to document the status and occurrence of these scarcer species and we welcome contributions from anyone with photographs, artwork or documentation of rarities past, present and future. The GRC also welcomes all seawatching news from around Glamorgan and news of passage migrants in spring & autumn, uncommon birds in our area and unusual behaviour.

All visitors are welcome. You must first register by sending an email to GlamRC@gmail.com before you can contribute. An invite will be sent to your email address. Blog content will be strictly moderated. Access to pages and downloads are available to everyone. All photographs on this blog remain the property of the originator. If you would like to use photos, please arrange permission beforehand.

The Glamorgan Rarities Committee, in conjunction with the Glamorgan Bird Club & Gower Wildlife , have agreed to co-operate with the Welsh Ornithological Society in the sharing of bird records & photographs in the interest of keeping accurate records and to promote birdwatching in North, Mid & South Wales.

Another very good find by Mr Dean Bolt this morning at the Watermill Flood. A number of Glamorgan County listers were very keen to get this grip-back and those that made the effort to see it this morning couldn't have asked for better views.

Squacco Heron is for West Glam as Gull-billed Tern is for East Glam, with 3 previously accepted records before this year all coming from the other half of the county. This year so far shows no sign that those trends will end anytime soon.

Wednesday, 18 May 2016

An adult Gull-billed Tern was pretty much the first bird spotted (around 19:45hrs) when I took the dog for an amble at the bridge this evening. Chris Brewer, Neil Edwards and Sandra managed to get down and see it feeding with a scattered group of Black-headed Gulls before it eventually headed off to Morfa Baccas (Carms) where we left it on the sandflats at 20:20hrs.

There have now been four occurrences of Gull-billed Tern in the Burry Inlet, on each occasion birds have wandered into both vice-counties:

1987, April, Machynys (vc44) & Salthouse (vc41)

1996, July-Aug, Penclacwydd (vc44) & Crofty (vc41)

2012, June, Penclacwydd (vc44) & Loughor (vc41)

2016, May, Loughor (vc41) & Morfa Baccas (vc44)

The only other Glamorgan bird was the one at Penrice 1993. It's about time a Caspian put in another appearance!

Thursday, 12 May 2016

Two Little Stints 11/05/16 at Rhaslas Pool. Another excellent record from this threatened upland site. Well done to Mike Hogan for this photo of a scarce passage migrant to East Glamorgan. This constitutes the 3rd record for this species at this site.

Monday, 9 May 2016

Saturday, 7 May 2016

Record shot of this afternoon's marsh harrier over Kenfig saltmarsh/reedbed. This morning a turtle dove landed briefly on private land between the Prince of Wales and Kenfig Pool. A nuthatch, garden warbler and 4 spotted flycatchers were of local interest

Friday, 6 May 2016

The Golden Plover at Sker is causing a few of us some headaches. Whether it is an American or an European, people can judge for themselves. However, my initial feeling is that this bird appears to have too much of an European influence to be treated as an American, not a pure one at any rate! Hopefully I'm wrong.
Discussion on this bird may run but I'll post a few pics here to help things on their way. The axillaries, and underwing generally, are very much as one might expect for a European Golden Plover (EGP). Also pro EGP is the shortish wing projection. Conversely, pro American Golden Plover (AGP) is the primary projection, which appears at least 80% with 5 visible pps. The bill appears small and the bird appears leggy even in the short grass. The face has rather an open look to it which may explain why the supercillium doesn't jump out at you, or maybe it should be bolder.
This bird is seemingly a first summer bird with much of the juvenile plumage worn and faded. This might explain the rather cold tones in appearance. If this is an AGP then it is an unusual looking one, but whatever the case no-one can deny it is a challenging and interesting bird.